About the Self Portrait Painting
Balthus often painted young girls that show an innocence and vulnerability. He
was quoted as saying..One of my art's main motifs is the mirror, invested
with the mark of vanity as well as the highest ascendancy. To me, it often gives
an echo of the spirit's profoundest varieties, in the style of Plato, whom I often
read at Rossiniere. That's why my young girls often hold them, not only to look
at themselves, which would be a mere sign of frivolity and my young girls are
nor shameless Lolitas but to plumb the furthest depths of their underlying beings.
Thus my paintings have many layers of meaning, vanishings in the canvas, so to
speak, that duplicate its story, confessing their unfathomability.Balthus
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